Rapid Shift

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By William Lazonick and Ken Jacobson, Aug. 23, 2018, nytimes.com Since the 1980s, corporate boards in the United States have embraced as dogma the position that companies should be run primarily for the benefit of their shareholders. The stranglehold of this doctrine of “shareholder-value maximization” over corporate decision making has been a leading cause of inequitable incomes, unstable employment, and sagging productivity. The principal …

Excerpt from Students as Debt Slaves, at CommonDreams.org 23 Apr 2018. Interview those fifty-ish high school educated male workers whom Ann Case and Angus Deaton revealed are dying prematurely from diseases of despair. In a meticulously documented essay on the origins and purpose of money, University of Missouri-Kansas City economist Michael Hudson points out that historians and anthropologists can find no examples of …

Guardian Book Review Analysis of real force … Adair Turner. Photograph: Ben Smith/Rex After the crisis of 2008, every concerned citizen wanted to understand what had been going on in the City to take us all to the brink of bankruptcy. It suddenly seemed important to unravel mysterious acronyms – CDOs, SIVs, CDSs – that you might previously have skimmed breezily over …

‘HSCB’ in Walthamstow is selling printed ‘banknotes’ to raise money to buy local debt By Anna Leach Fri 23 Mar 2018 in The Guardian The Hoe Street Central Bank has taken over the former Co-op bank in Walthamstow. Photograph: Alicia Canter for the Guardian First there were the banks. Sending credit cards through the post, offering easy loans. They overstretched, teetered. Then …

It has become an all-too-familiar sight—websites, posters, collection jars with photos of children, mothers, young people who need medical care they can’t afford. Some will not receive life-saving treatment without this help. All too often, the bills will saddle the family with a debt burden that will follow them for years—sometimes for life. Getting sick, having a baby, or being …